Progress of the work—1886. He died in 1820. Mr. Charles Richardson, after leaving Edinburgh University, became a pupil of Mr. Isambard Kingdom Brunel in 1834. He set out a good part of the Great Western Railway at the Bristol end, and put down the trial shafts on the Box Tunnel; but his first engagement on a public work was in the Thames Tunnel, under Sir M. I. Brunel, the father of Mr. I. K. Brunel.
In 1838 he undertook the supervision and setting out of the line from Swindon to Cirencester, and was afterwards resident on the Stroud Valley Railway, where he built his first equilibrated arch from his own design, under a trackway of 1 in 2⁹⁄₁₀.
In 1846 he carried out the line between Hereford, Ross and Gloucester, and afterwards made the Bristol and South Wales Union Railway, which latter was the introduction to the Severn Tunnel Railway.
M. A. G. Luke was the resident engineer under Messrs. Hawkshaw, Son, and Hayter. Mr. Luke was at the works from 1st January, 1881, up to their entire completion. He had to superintend the whole of the setting out, to keep all the accounts of the work done, and to make innumerable designs for new works required to meet emergencies. I can say that, in a long experience on public works, I have never known a resident engineer more cautious or painstaking, more anxious to protect the interests of the Company, and at the same time pleasant to transact business with.
